Syrians in Latakia protesting against the government: the opposition Local Co-Ordination Committees says it has counted 257 dead since the beginning of the crackdown on the eve of Ramadan. Photograph: Shaam News Network/EPA

Well, that's going to be up to the Syrian people, but I can tell you that President Obama and I have been working very hard to marshal international opinion ...

What is important is that the Syrian people know that the United States is on the side of a peaceful transition to democracy. We believe that they have the same right as people anywhere to choose their own leaders, to have the kind of democratic institutions that will maximize their individual opportunities ...

So we are building what I think is a much more persuasive case that the international community – not just the United States – wants to see peaceful change in Syria ...

We've sent a very clear message that he should be doing what is necessary to end the violence against his own people. But it's important that it's not just the American voice, and we want to make sure that those voices are coming from around the world.

During the interview, Clinton also urged other countries including China, Russia and India to do more to impose sanctions on the Assad regime:

What we really need to do to put the pressure on Asad is to sanction the oil and gas industry, and we want to see Europe take more steps in that direction. And we want to see China take steps with us. We want to see India, because India and China have large energy investments inside of Syria. We want to see Russia cease selling arms to the Asad regime.

• At least 19 people were killed in raids near the Lebanon border and in the country's Sunni tribal heartland on Thursday/Friday, activists said. Activists and rights campaigners said 11 civilians, including a woman and a child, were killed on Thursday when troops and tanks swept into Qusair, 135 km (85 miles) north of Damascus, after overnight protests calling for Assad's removal. In nearby Homs, activists said on Friday that five people, including a nine-year-old boy, were killed in an overnight raid on the Byada residential district after protests in the city.

Libya

•Rebels battling Muammar Gaddafi's troops claim they have captured the key oil terminal of Brega. Rebel spokesman Mohammed al-Rijali said he was with the fighters in Brega, which has repeatedly changed hands in the 6-month-old civil war, when they gained control on Thursday of the strategic port city, 125 miles (200km) south-west of the de-facto rebel capital of Benghazi, after three weeks of intense fighting."Brega is liberated," he told the the Associated Press. His claim could not be immediately verified and officials in the Libyan capital Tripoli made no comment on it. Another rebel spokesman, Mohammed al-Zawawi, said earlier on Thursday that two rebels died in the day's fighting in Brega, while 16 others were wounded.

Em Mahmoud, who has been a nursing veteran for 22 years and who works at a private 30-bed hospital not far from Roundabout 40, says several injured protesters were brought into her facility, too afraid to seek treatment in the main facilities. One was shot in the chest, another in the knee. "Soldiers came into the hospital looking for wounded protesters," she says. "We hid the three that we had. We moved them on gurneys and in wheelchairs toward the back entrance, and from there we drove them to a safe house."

Residents speak of being unable to reach bodies in the streets, of snipers targeting people in their homes, of house-to-house searches, mass indiscriminate detentions, looting and even rape. There are cars in the streets that have been shot up, several with bullet holes that pierced the windscreens on the driver's side, at head level. It's unclear how many people were killed, although residents speak of hundreds dead. In the coming days, there will be an accounting, as families slowly return and the numbers of missing, detained and dead are ascertained.

But perhaps even more painful than the physical damage, residents say, is the humiliation: the graffiti Assad's troops left all over the main streets, much of which is considered blasphemous and deeply offensive to this religiously conservative majority-Sunni Muslim city. "There is no God but Bashar" is scrawled in black paint in Souk al-Farwatiye, across the street from the vast, imposing white stone structure that is the ruling Baath Party headquarters in the city. "God Bashar and Maher Mohammad," reads another sign, referring to Assad's younger brother Maher, commander of the despised 4th Division, responsible for much of the bloodshed over the past five months. The graffiti equates Bashar Assad to God and his brother to the Prophet Muhammad.

10.20am: Supporters of the Syrian pro-democracy protesters are trying to launch a campaign on Twitter to draw attention to their plight. They want to get the hashtag #SyriaBleeds to trend. To maximise the impact they have set a time of 11am BST (1pm Syrian time) for people to start tweeting using #SyriaBleeds.

10.41am:Turkey has taken the extraordinary step of calling in every officer retired from its military in the past five years to help staff its provinces bordering Syria, Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman reports.

Turkish officials said on Thursday that the number of Syrians taking refuge in Turkey had reached 7,239 and there are reports suggesting another 17,000 are on their way, according to Today's Zaman.

It adds:

Turkey is also concerned about a possible Nato intervention in Syria. The government believes that such an intervention would hurt Turkey the most and hopes that the situation is resolved without the need for an international intervention. Turkey also fears that a Nato intervention might spark a backlash in the Muslim world.

11.04am: Gunmen attacked a Yemeni military patrol in the southern city of Taiz, killing a soldier in a resumption of clashes between loyalists and opponents of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's state news agency said (via Reuters).

The agency called the attackers "anarchic, lawless elements", without specifying their identity. Two other soldiers were wounded, it said.

Taiz has been the scene of months of popular protests demanding the removal of Saleh, who is now in Saudi Arabia where he went for treatment of wounds suffered in an assassination attempt in June.

The protests in Taiz, 200km (120 miles) from the capital Sana'a, have split the city into halves controlled by government forces and those aligned with tribesmen who want him gone and side with anti-Saleh demonstrators. Several ceasefires have collapsed, including one that was to have taken force this week.

Saleh said this week he would cooperate with Yemen's opposition and international powers to revive a plan to ease him from office brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council, a bloc of Yemen's wealthier Gulf neighbours. His renewed interest in the plan, which he previously agreed to only to back out three times, follows prodding from US envoys to hand over power.

The Assad regime has done the math and realised it won't fall as long as the protests don't reach the capital Damascus and the major city of Aleppo - that is, convulse the urban middle class. The security/military apparatus is fully behind Assad. All Syrian religious minorities make up at least 25% of the population; they are extremely fearful of Sunni fundamentalists. Secular Sunnis for their part fear a regime change that would lead to either an Islamist takeover or chaos. So it's fair to argue the majority of Syrians are indeed behind their government - as inept and heavy-handed as it may be.

Moreover, the Assad regime knows the conditions are not ripe for a Libyan-style North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign in Syria. There won't even be a vote for a UN resolution - Russia and China have already made it clear.

Europe is melting - and it will hardly sign up for added ill-planned adventurism. Especially after the appalling spectacle of those dodgy types of the Libyan transitional council killing their military leader and fighting their tribal wars in the open - with the added ludicrous touch of Britain recognising the "rebels" the same day they were killing and burning the body of their "commander".

There's no reason for a Western "humanitarian intervention" under R2P ("responsibility to protect") because there's no humanitarian crisis; Somalia, in fact, is the top humanitarian crisis at the moment, leading to fears that Washington may in fact try to "invade" or at least try to control strategically-crucial Somalia.

So the idea of the Barack Obama administration in the United States telling Assad to pack up and go is dead on arrival as a game-changer.

Rebels said they had captured a residential area of Brega on Thursday (here's a picture purportedly from Brega, link provided by @BrownMoses). But spokesman Mohammed Zawawi told reporters it was still not safe to go into the city. The oil terminal is about 15kms (about 10 miles) from the residential district. He said:

Now we're trying to clear that area. There are some Gaddafi troops still there. Gaddafi troops are shooting rockets into the city.

Avaaz says that almost all Syria's exported oil is purchased by European countries, primarily Germany, France and Italy but these governments have yet to use their key trade relationship with Assad as leverage to protect the Syrian people.

Campaign director Alice Jay said:

For months, Syria's brutal President Assad has paid henchmen to wage war on his own people with lucrative European oil revenues. Governments across the world have condemned these atrocities, but key European leaders could easily cut off the cash flow that finances this bloodbath.

If these countries move to impose immediate oil sanctions, Assad's slaughter funds will dry up. We have no time to lose. Every day dozens of Syrians are killed, tortured or disappeared simply for calling for basic democratic rights. The EU can stop funding the crackdown now.

12.01pm: Activists say Syrian troops have opened fire on thousands of protesters in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour.

Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso says the protests against President Bashar Assad erupted following Friday prayers in two mosques in the city.

The protests came despite a deadly government crackdown during which security troops seized control of the city this week.

Osso and the activist network The Local Coordination Committees confirmed the shooting but said there was no immediate word on casualties.

Other protests were reported in the north-east of the country, in the central city of Homs and Hama countryside.

A resident of Daraa told al-Jazeera there is a "heavy" security presence in Daraa and said more than 150 young men were arrested in the city yesterday.

12.51pm: The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), which organise and report protests in Syria, report that two people have killed in the country's second biggest city, Aleppo (there have already been two deaths reported by activists today - one in Idlib and one in the Damascus suburb of Saqba), and says there is also gunfire in Homs, Hama and the Damascus suburbs of Harasta and Douma. It also reports protests in the coastal city of Latakia and in other Damascus suburbs. We cannot independently verify the LCC reports

1.16pm: Hundreds of thousands of people have poured onto the streets of major cities and towns across Yemen, demanding that President Saleh - still recuperating in Saudi Arabia after a June assassination attempt - stand down, reports the Associated Press:

Defying the scorching summer weather and the dawn-to-dusk fasting hours during the holy month of Ramadan, the crowds are waving Yemeni flags and chanting slogans against President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

One of the protesters, Gamal Gaber, says no one is leaving the rally "until we topple Saleh and all his regime members." Meanwhile, thousands of Saleh loyalists gathered for Friday prayers in a mosque near the presidential palace in the capital Sana'a.

1.27pm: The LCC is now saying that eight people have been killed by security forces across Syria today. It has not given a breakdown of where they have benn killed but the Associated Press reports that at least one protester was killed in the central city of Homs, according to activists.

Activists said earlier that two people had been killed in Aleppo, one in Idlib and one in a suburb of Damascus.

Al-Jazeera is reporting 10 deaths.

This video purports to show people running through the streets of Syria's second biggest city, Aleppo, today with the sound of gunfire in the background.

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2.23pm: As the crackdown in Syria continues here's news of a couple of diplomatic efforts to put pressure on the Assad regime.

Photograph: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images

Turkish President Abdullah Gul has warned Bashar al-Assad not to leave reforms until it is too late in a letter delivered to the Syrian president earlier this week, state-run Anatolian news agency reported on Friday. Reuters reports:

Part of a campaign of Turkish pressure on neighbour Syria, for whom Turkey has been an important ally, the letter was delivered by foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu when he visited Damascus and held talks with Assad on Tuesday. Anatolian quoted Gul as writing in the letter:

"I don't want to see you looking back one day and regretting that what you have done was too little and too late ...Leading the change instead of being carried away by the winds of change will place (you) in a historical position."

Davutoglu demanded this week that Syria's leaders stop the killing of civilians involved in unrest against Assad's autocratic rule, saying events in the coming days would be critical.

Meanwhile, France has condemned the reported arrest of Abdul-Karim Rihawi, the Damascus-based head of the Syrian Human Rights League. A longtime rights activist, Rihawi had been tracking government violations and documenting deaths in Syria.

He was picked up from a cafe in central Damascus along with a journalist who had been interviewing him, according to rights activist Ammar Qurabi. France called for his immediate release.

By its brutal and symbolic character, the arrest of Abdul-Karim Rihawi constitutes a new unacceptable decision by the authorities of Damascus.

The French foreign ministry statement said the arrest goes against the expectations of the international community and said the violent repression and political arrests must cease in Syria.

Witness in Deir el-Zour: "Security forces burned shops & many bakeries so there is a lack of bread." #syria

Witness in Deir el-Zour: "Security looting & rioting at evening time, crash shops and take the stuff inside the stores." #syria

3.11pm: Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's feared former security chief was acquitted on Friday on charges of forging passports to help relatives of the deposed Tunisian leader and his wife escape with cash and jewellery, Reuters reports:

A Tunisian court dropped the case against Ali al-Seriati, but he remains in custody pending more serious charges of trying to sow strife in the wake of the revolution that sparked the "Arab Spring" protests that spread across the region.

In the same session, the court sentenced 23 relatives of Ben Ali - who is being tried in absentia along with his wife, Leila Trabelsi, having fled to Saudia Arabia together - to jail terms ranging between four months and six years. Leila Trabelsi was sentenced to six years in absentia and Ben Ali's powerful son-in-law Sakher Materi was sentenced to four years in absentia.

Analysts and politicians say Ben Ali's former allies are still in positions of power and are working behind the scenes to save their friends, protect their interests and roll back the gains Tunisians have made since Ben Ali fled the country.

Seriati was considered close to the Tunisian leader and many Tunisians accuse him of orchestrating a spree of violence after Ben Ali fled the country on 14 January.Seriati appealed for forgiveness in court on Wednesday, shouting at the end of the hearing:

"I ask the Tunisian people to forgive me. I am Tunisian and I love Tunisia."

Protests are planned in the coming days to demand a judicial overhaul to try to ensure that police and officials are held accountable for the deaths of more than 100 protesters.

3.19pm: Al-Jazeera Arabic is reporting that 14 people have been killed across Syria today.

This video, purportedly filmed in Homs today, where a protester has been killed according to activists, shows a member of the Syrian security services firing a gun:

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3.35pm: The Local Co-ordination Committees now say that 13 people have been killed in Syria today.

4.03pm: I'm going to wrap up the blog for the day now. Thanks, as always, for your comments. Here's a summary of the key developments of the day:

Graphic

•Syrian security forces have opened fire in cities across the country, as protesters have taken to the streets for the "day of not kneeling". The Local Co-ordination Committees says that 13 people have been killed, including five in Aleppo. It says there have also been deaths in Deir el-Zour, Hama, Homs, Idlib and the Damascus suburbs of Douma and Saqba. The Syrian Revolution Co-ordinators Union put the total number of deaths at 16.

•The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has defended not calling for Bashar al-Assad to leave power, insisting that it was a matter for the Syrian people to decide.

•Libyan rebels say they have captured a resident area in the strategic eastern port of Brega but that troops loyal to Gaddafi are still in control of the town's oil terminal and refinery.

•Hundreds of thousands of people have poured onto the streets of major cities and towns across Yemen, demanding that President Saleh - still recuperating in Saudi Arabia after a June assassination attempt - stand down. Meanwhile, thousands of Saleh loyalists gathered for Friday prayers in a mosque near the presidential palace in the capital Sana'a.

•Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's feared former security chief was acquitted on Friday on charges of forging passports to help relatives of the deposed Tunisian leader and his wife escape with cash and jewellery. But Ali al-Seriati remains in custody pending more serious charges of trying to sow strife in the wake of the revolution that sparked the "Arab Spring" protests that spread across the region.